Three Interesting Ways to Use Google Slides Besides Making Presentations

Google Slides was once a bare-bones alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote. I can still remember when the option to add a video was big news. Fast forward to today and there are lots of things that you can do with Google Slides besides make basic slideshow presentations. Here are three of my favorite ways to use Google Slides for something other than making a presentation.

Create a Jeopardy-style Game 
By inserting a table into your cover slide then using the slide-linking feature in Google Slides you can create a Jeopardy-style game to play in your classroom. The steps for doing that are outlined in the video below.


Create a Multimedia Timeline in Google Slides
A couple of years ago Google added some diagram templates to Google Slides. These templates can be inserted into any of your slides. A timeline is one of the templates that you'll find in the diagrams menu. Watch the following video to learn how to create a timeline in Google Slides.


Make a Common Craft-style Video
You can make simple animated videos with a bit of clip art, the animation tools built into Google Slides, and a free screen recording tool like Screencastify. In the following video I demonstrate how to do that.

It's Not You, It's Me - How to Check If a Website is Working Correctly

Yesterday morning Charles asked me via Twitter about a site I had previously mentioned for checking whether or not a website is up or down. The site Charles was looking for is Down for Everyone or Just Me. It's a simple site that will tell you if a website it is up or if it is down. I find it useful whenever I'm wondering if I'm having trouble accessing a site because of a change on our network filter or if the trouble in on the site's end. Here's a little video that I made about Down for Everyone or Just Me.

Quickly Create & Share Transcripts of YouTube Videos

VidReader was one of my favorite new tools in 2019. It's a tool that makes it easy to create an interactive transcript of any YouTube video. This morning I used to to create a transcript of a video. When I used VidReader this morning I noticed two new features that I hadn't previously seen. Those two new-to-me features are the option to share a direct link to the transcription page and the option to download the transcript as a PDF.

To use VidReader to generate a transcript simply head to the site then paste in the URL of the YouTube video that you want to create a transcript of. VidReader will then generate a transcript and display it on a page alongside the original video. The transcript is time-stamped so that you can click on it to jump to a section of the video. Below the video on the transcription page you'll find a link to share the transcript. And if you sign into VidReader (accounts are free) you can download a PDF of the transcript.

Here's the link to try the VidReader page that is pictured above.

Cotton and the Life Cycle of a Tee Shirt

Last week TED-Ed published a new lesson titled Why Is Cotton In Everything? The lesson begins with an explanation of why cotton was used by the Inca in suits of armor. From there the lesson delves into the properties of cotton that make strong, soft, and flexible. The bulk of the lesson is then spent on how cotton fibers grow.


At the end of Why Is Cotton In Everything? there is a suggestion to watch The Life Cycle of a T-Shirt. That video explains how tee shirts are made and distributed around the world. The lesson also takes a look at the environmental impact of the tee shirt industry.

19,000+ Teachers Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way

At about this time six years ago I created the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week newsletter as a way to provide a summary of my most popular daily posts along with a featured tip of the week. This week the 19,000th teacher signed up for the newsletter. You can do the same right here.

The Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week newsletter features my favorite tip of the week along with a summary of the most popular blog posts from my blogs FreeTech4Teachers.com, PracticalEdTech.com, and EdTechFitness.com. The newsletter is emailed on Sunday evening/ Monday morning (depends on your timezone). I'll often include things that aren't published elsewhere. For example, this week's newsletter included access to a Google Doc featuring my collection of best resources for public domain and Creative Commons audio files.

Those of you who read FreeTech4Teachers.com via email will be pleased to know that the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week email is published manually which means that unlike the FreeTech4Teachers.com daily emails, you can read the entire article in your inbox.

Sign up for the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week newsletter right here.